


In Your Memory

by Bananase221



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016), Stranger Things - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Canon Harringrove, Canon compliant-ish, Dead Billy, Hurt No Comfort, I hope this is it, I'm Bad At Tagging, Letter, M/M, Sad, Spoiler?, Steve is in mourning, dealing with grief, i guess, potential vague mention of abuse, same plot-ish but with canon Harringrove, takes place post Season 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-09
Updated: 2019-08-09
Packaged: 2020-08-13 13:03:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20174716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bananase221/pseuds/Bananase221
Summary: After Billy's death, his boyfriend Steve writes Billy a letter detailing the first few weeks after his burial and Steve's mourning process and attempts to deal with grief."Dear Billy,It’s been three days since they put you in the ground. I’ve started to write this letter because I feel your loss like a physical ache that wants to rip me apart from the inside out...I took the lighter, your lighter, the one Max snuck out of your jacket pocket before it became evidence when they took your body away, and set the edge of the letter, sealed just for your, stamped with your name, on fire. I watch as the orange flames blacken and curl my words, warping them first out of recognition, then into nothing but ash. I watch as the pieces fall onto your grave and intermingle with the new, fresh shoots of grass just beginning to sprout amidst the flowers..."





	In Your Memory

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WhiteHawkHarringrove](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhiteHawkHarringrove/gifts).

> This is my first Harringrove fic, and I hope you like it! If you do, please let me know in the comments! I really appreciate hearing your feedback! 
> 
> (PS, also, Hozier’s cover of ‘Do I Wanna Know’ and ‘You Were Good To Me’ by Jeremy Zucker and Chelsea Cutler add some nice (depressing) mood music, if you’re interested! I wrote to these songs and they gave me major feels!)

In Loving Memory

Dear Billy,

It’s been three days since they put you in the ground. I’ve started to write this letter because I feel your loss like a physical ache that wats to rip me apart from the inside out. My parents and everyone… they’re worried about me, and I understand why, but it’s almost like they… try not to know or remember what I -_we_\- were. That we were in love. They were never around much, especially after you started to come around, and I think they couldn’t handle it… us. They wanted me to get over you, and they never understood what we were because they couldn’t see past who you were and what that made me. They are away again on a vacation and I don’t see how that is supposed to help me heal, and I think they are in denial over my ever loving you. I’m writing this because I need you still, and I need to be able to talk to you about not having you.

I don’t know if I’ll ever recover, while at the same time I know I will, and I simultaneously dread and wait with baited breath for that day. Your memory is already beginning to fade in this town; I can see it in the way people are laughing, hear it in the way they no longer speak your name, and feel it in the way my mind already drifts to you less and less. Yesterday I turned to an empty chair, about to ask you how you want your eggs; this morning I made four eggs out of habit and it took me a moment to realize why so many were left over after I was full as I stared down at the sunny yellow yolks. I remembered with a pang so hard I couldn’t breathe. I dropped my fork and slipped from my chair, trying to keep the sobs and overwhelming guilt at bay. They (the grief counsellors and therapists my parents have already forced me to see) tell me it’s survivor’s guilt but I don’t think so. I don’t feel guilty that I’m alive, I feel guilty that you’re not alive with me, sharing eggs and toast on a Saturday morning in my kitchen after you’ve spent the night, the only person who’s ever kept me company in the last three years. I made toast for dinner; I was too nauseous to eat. I made four slices, and I threw two away. You would have scolded me. I went to bed cold.

I woke up this morning warm and with the feeling of your arms around me, and for a moment I was _happy_ until I turned around and you weren’t there and the blanket that was placed just right slipped away as I shifted to hold… you. It took the warmth with it and I rolled over, craving the warmth that would normally envelope your side of the bed. I inhaled your scent that is just barely lingering, even though I refuse to change the sheets. You didn’t spend much time here in your last week, and now I know why. I hugged your pillow to my chest and your name left my mouth in a sob. Tears refuse to track down my cheeks. I think I’m dehydrated. You always made sure I drank water. As tough as you were on the outside, I could always tell you cared as you glared and shoved the glass of cool water at me with an annoyed, “Drink.”. And I would, with a giggle and a smile as though you were the world to me (and you really were), and a, “I knew you loved me.”. You would duck your head, but I’d still see the way your lips curved, pleased at the thought that I knew you so well. Then you’d wrap your arms around me and whisper in my ear, a secret just for me, “I love you.”. And because I <strike>loved</strike> _love_ you and knew you needed to hear it I’d say, “I love you too,” because I knew that now wasn’t the time for joking and “I know” would just make you worry.

Max and I visited your grave today. We both cried and recalled the times when you used to be an asshole, before we got to see the softer sides of you. She loved you a lot and said you were a good brother even when you were being, in her words, a dick. I’m pretty sure she gets her mouth from you as much as she may protest it. Anyways, we picked a spot facing the lake (the closest we could find to a beach in Hawkins) and we planted blue and red flowers, just like the ones your mother loved. You would have secretly loved it. I miss you.

I turned to tell you a joke while I was watching TV today and I relished and hated the fact that you haunt my mind. I made only two slices of toast today and I relished and hated the fact that I’d forgotten you so easily in this simple task, that it was a sign I’d be better one day. I feel it though, deep in my bones, that while it may get better it will never be right without you because you were the only thing that ever made me feel right, and as I move on and your memory is lost a little more every day, you will never fully fade, and you will never fully leave my heart because even though we didn’t have each other for long I know you love me. And you know I love you.

I decided to end the letter now. I’ll update you soon in person.

I miss you every day.

All our love,

Steve ‘The Hair’ Harrington

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I took the lighter, your lighter, the one Max snuck out of your jacket pocket before it became evidence when they took your body away, and set the edge of the letter, sealed just for you, stamped with your name, on fire. I watch as the orange flames blacken and curl my words, warping them first out of recognition, then into nothing but ash. I watch as the pieces fall onto your grave and intermingle with the new, fresh shoots of grass just beginning to sprout amidst the flowers. I crouch down, then fall softly to my knees, and pull out your flask (this, you left in my bedroom by accident the day you went out for a drive, and never, really, came back) and I proceed to slowly, gently pour the harsh salt water I’d collected for you at that beach you used to love in California. Max and I made the trip last week. Max and I. It seems like it’s always just the two of us when it comes to you. Nobody else knew, or cared enough to know, the real you.

It makes me sad, not that you felt comfortable enough with only us to show your beautiful true self, but that no one else will ever have the chance to know who you really are. No one else will have the chance to know that you… have a beautiful smile and that it’s completely different from your smirk because when you smiled it meant that you were completely comfortable and at peace in ways you told me you never knew was possible. Nobody else will ever have the chance to know that you have an uncontrollable sweet tooth or that you love cuddles but need to be eased into the contact slowly and gently like a wounded animal, because you really were wounded, and if someone approached you too fast out of nowhere you’d have a panic attack, or that you are – were – one of the most loving and caring people I’ve ever met.

Speaking of Max and I, we hoped, even prayed that this would somehow make your dad better, but it only made him worse. Max’s mom left him. They stayed, and last I heard he was back in California, too much of a coward to stay with his only son.

I take a deep breath, and stop… talking? Thinking? Who knows anymore, nothing makes sense in a world without you, and watch as the salt water weighs down the ash, trapping it and making it cling to the earth that encompasses you, and I don’t care that the water will (ironically) kill the plants, because, after all, we can get new plants, not a new you. There will never be another you. I’m not (and never have been) proud enough to even think of denying that not all the saltwater came from the flask as the hot, heavy tears begin to roll down my cheeks without warning. I breathe in and it’s you – earth and life and death and the sea – your grave encompassing all four elements, and I cry long hard sobs as I remember your smell and yearn with all my soul for it to fill my nose again, to feel your warmth against me again, but all I smell are the elements (you’ll only ever smell two of them again) and all I feel is cold (like your body). I hope it’s warm where you are – and beautiful too.

I kiss your headstone – it’s beautiful, just like you; my parents actually helped Max, her family, and I pay for it. I think they just wanted the whole thing over with as soon as possible, but I didn’t care because it means you get the very best for once <strike>in your life</strike> – that was installed yesterday, pressing my lips to the rough granite that reminds me so much of you before you let me in. I trace your name with my fingertips and they shake, pale and white with cold (it’s probably too early in the morning but I stopped caring about normalcy the day the Mind Flayer’s arm shot through your chest and ended your existence.) and probably lack of nutrition.

I stand with stiff legs and an ache in my chest, and this I know I say out loud, my hand resting on your headstone, “I love you. And I miss you. With all our love."


End file.
